


A Difficult King

by thats_my_bulma



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Confessions, F/M, One Shot, Reign AU, mention of past punishment, nothing graphic though, prompt request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 04:19:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10209482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thats_my_bulma/pseuds/thats_my_bulma
Summary: Bulma accuses the king of being difficult as he goes through the annual offerings from his various mines. Vegeta delves into his past, letting Bulma know that he could have been a wretched ruler had the past played out differently.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the delay on Reign (and this prompt), I got the painting bug and spent all my creative time on that the past few days. The lovely marcella-duchamp from tumblr asked for a Reign prompt (the prompt was: he's so spoiled), and I was super pumped about that! 
> 
> I rated it mature because of a very short flirtatious part at the end...its not really bad at all but I like to cover my ass. If you like smut, this is not the one-shot for you! ;>

Bulma watched in fascination as the king turned each jewel over in his hands, inspecting them for quality, fire or clarity depending on the type. The few acceptable ones he found, he had sat out on the desk; the rest went back into a haphazard pile from the crate they had arrived in.

“Really, you think those bastards would have presented better jewels to the damn king,” He mumbled, turning an emerald over and tossing it into the wooden crate indelicately, “I don’t even like emeralds. When has anyone ever seen _me_ wearing an emerald on anything?”

“Green just isn’t you color, _huh_?” Bulma said dispassionately, rolling a large, uncut ruby around in her palms.

“Hells no it’s not.” He growled, not noticing her derision and tossing an opal into the growing undesirable pile.

“Have you always been this…. Hard to please?” She laughed, putting the ruby down and picking up the opal, admiring its shimmering red, green and blue fire. 

“Yes. _No_. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that these were supposed to be the best jewels of the mining year and I can’t see why that _these_ pieces of trash were chosen.” He exhaled, motioning toward the undesirables in the crate. Bulma shook her head at his spoiled reaction, sipping her tea before speaking.

“So what is it, have you or haven’t you always been a brat?” Bulma asked, tossing the opal from hand to hand. Vegeta raised an eyebrow at a grape sized black diamond, adding it to the few that had already made the cut on his left.

“I was a spoiled fucking terror… before Frieza.” Vegeta hesitated, tapping his fingers on his desk, not making eye contact with Bulma as she sat up off the plush chair behind him. She was very interested in any rare scrap of information about the king’s elusive childhood, since she knew so little about him.

“I was the first child of the new king, so I got whatever I wanted. I was a little shit.” He grinned uneasily, leaning back in his desk chair and flicking his tail. _He always led himself down the awkward path of confession to the woman…without fail, he stumbled down that slope every time._

“That’s pretty typical of royal children universally, right?” Bulma asked, leaning on her hand.

“Typically, but I was _the_ _worst_. I was stronger than a good lot of the servants, even at five, six years of age. I tormented them, pulling tails, threatening lives and throwing energy around like it was nothing. I got whatever I wanted, jewels, baubles, animals. People bowed at my every childish command.” He went back to sorting through the jewels as Bulma smiled, imagining Vegeta as a miniature terror, dressed in the finest garb with a little red cape flowing behind him as he tormented the palace.

“So, not much has changed, right?” She teased, _half-_ jokingly…thinking about how he constantly berated Raditz, the servants, as well as other subordinates that he considered incompetent and beneath him.

“ _Keita_.” He looked over his shoulder at Bulma as she smirked at him, sipping from her cup of tea. It was getting cold and she finished it up before retiring the mug to the table.

“Sometimes I think that being a hostage to Frieza was a _constructive_ experience.”

“ _What_?” Bulma asked incredulously, thinking she would have spit her tea in shock if she had still been drinking. Vegeta grit his teeth, thinking of the right words to say.

“Don’t get me wrong it was…. ten years of hell. But I learned what hell _really_ was under his thumb. I… I think I would have been a shitty ruler if it hadn’t lived under Frieza first.” Vegeta swallowed, hardly believing the words that escaped his lips.

Bulma was shocked to hear him talk about Frieza, a name she rarely heard escape his lips unless he was drinking, _and he was most definitely sober_. And to hear him speak about his time as a hostage as being _constructive?_ It was beyond her.

“How was….that time constructive?” She murmured, staring at the back of his head as he slid jewels across his desk.

“I would have been a wretched ruler. I would have ended up pissing Frieza off by retaliating when he took more and more of our soldiers, resources, money. The entire Saiyan race would have been destroyed from my ego and resistance, because I wouldn’t have been able to fight him back. I would have been weak, spoiled, _pathetic_.”

Bulma blinked, processing the confession and getting ready to speak when he continued.

“That time hardened me. Changed me.”

“I think I understand…”

“I was never allowed to keep any of the spoils from sacking a planet. None of the soldiers were. I had been warned several times, Nappa tried to drill it into my head that I would suffer the consequences if I so much as took a rock back on Frieza’s damn ship. In my childish ignorance, I ignored him.

After a few months of working under the bastard, I had begun to settle in, got comfortable as much as one could working under Frieza. I took a diamond from one of the towns we had destroyed, a small, simply cut, cloudy ass diamond. Lower noble material, at _best_.” He felt his stomach sink as he recalled the story, and Bulma listened raptly when he continued.

“The alarm sounded as soon as I stepped foot through the air lock. I remember Nappa trying to take the damn thing from me, to take the blame and punishment, but the guards had caught me before the hand off could be completed.” Vegeta swallowed again, his rage billowing up at Frieza’s words, words he recalled with astounding clarity. Bulma’s eyes softened as she listened, her heart dropping into her stomach.

“He said a lot of shit that day, but one thing I remember the most was that _the Saiyans were the filthy grakka of the worlds_. He wasn’t so wrong, really.”

“What’s a _grakka_?”

“A creature that steals jewels, gold…it hordes anything shiny. A detestable animal from his home planet.”

“Kind of like a magpie then.” Bulma said, trying to recall what a magpie even looked like.

“Yeah…whatever. Anyhow, I was punished. So severely, in fact, that I never took anything ever again. No matter how much I wanted to. So, to answer your questions about whether I was always so demanding…I wasn’t then, I would have taken paupers jewels if I could have.” He shrugged.

“But now you can have anything you want….”

“And _this_ is the shit they give me.” Vegeta  threw his hands up dramatically as his woman stood, making her way across the room.

“What was it like when you first became king? After not having luxurious things, and then suddenly having them?” Bulma asked as she walked into the kitchen to make another cup of tea. Vegeta rolled his eyes, feeling that he had divulged more than enough about his wretched past for one day, but humoring the woman anyhow. _On his own terms._

“It was fucking _great_ , I ate the most delectable foods, wore the best armor, fucked the finest women that the capital had to offer.” He grinned as he heard her drop something in the kitchen, squealing out in pain.

“Damn it Vegeta!”

“You asked, woman.” He murmured, creeping up to the doorway and watching her in amusement.

“I dropped a can on my foot!”

“You’re clumsy. And weak as shit.”

“If you fucked the finest women, why didn’t you just stick with them? Why’d you pick up some pathetic, weak-ass alien mechanic?” Bulma fumed, shoving a bag of tea into her cup as the water heated up rapidly. _Bring up fucking fine women…asshole._

“I didn’t know we were still talking about this after your dire foot injury.”

“We _are_.”

“Gods, woman, the women practically threw themselves on me, desperate to be the young kings queen. I was terrified of them… _at… first_.” Vegeta bit his tongue, knowing immediately he had divulged too much.

“This just keeps getting even better.” She rolled her eyes, taking the boiling water off the pad and pouring it into her cup. She made a face after thinking about what he had said, and turned to him with an eyebrow raised. _Terrfied? Oh this_ is _getting better._

“You were terrified of them? _Why_?” She smirked, leaning back against the counter while her tea steeped.

“I… am _not_ talking about that.”

“You were all about telling me…”

“That’s different.”

“Yes, it _is_ different. That’s why I want hear about it.”

“Noble women, experienced…in carnal… _gods_ , they were just...” He stuttered, wishing he had never said anything, wishing that he was still going through a crate of mostly shitty jewels while the woman was busy reading or playing some dumbass game on her handheld. _But no, no he had walked down this path on his own. Now he had to fix it, make her squirm like she had just made him squirm._

He approached Bulma expressionlessly as she leaned back on the counter, pressing himself against her, arms caging her in as he leaned in. Bulma flushed, biting her lip as he whispered into her ear.

“It was just like _this_.” Vegeta husked, as she nuzzled into his neck, running her hands over the hardness of his muscles, pressing herself into his bulge flirtatiously.

“I’m not intimidated, I’m just turned on.” She smiled into his neck as Vegeta ran his hands up her body slowly, trailing his lips over her neck as she exhaled, making to kiss her…. when he pulled back abruptly, crossing his arms and walking back into his office without a word. Bulma stood wide eyed and mouth agape as he turned the corner.

“Damn it, Vegeta! If that’s what those women did to you, then you had a _really shitty_ sex life before me! Tease!” She cried after him as he took a seat.

“I’ve got work to do, woman. I don’t have time to fuck around.” He growled, grinning to himself over a job well done. _The king always gets his way in the end._


End file.
